


a million little things

by villscrocs



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, eventual family, they go to therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:27:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villscrocs/pseuds/villscrocs
Summary: Eve and Villanelle navigate ways of making their relationship work. Naturally, Eve suggests couple's therapy.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 35
Kudos: 303





	1. turning back

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning for this chapter: mentions of violence and a panic attack. (i promise the angst is almost over!! they will be happy i promise)

They meet at the same place and time each week, Tuesdays at three o’clock on the eleventh floor of the unassuming London office building. It’s the worst part of the week for them both, and Eve frequently finds herself questioning whether it does more harm for their relationship-or whatever it is, than good, but she always forces them to stick it out for one more week, reassuring herself that the next appointment will be a breakthrough, and they’ll suddenly have a conventional, boringly domestic relationship. The kind that Villanelle has always seemed to fantasize about.

After their conversation on the bridge, they had gone to a kebab shop down the street from Villanelle’s old MI6 flat, and Eve had walked her in silence to the most recent safehouse location she knew. When they reached the front entrance of the apartment building, Eve took a crumpled piece of paper from her bag with a smudged phone number scratched onto it, and handed it to Villanelle. “Call this number if there’s any kind of emergency. And text me with any updates, okay?”

Villanelle furrowed her eyebrows. “What kind of updates?”

Eve glanced around the corner and lowered her voice. “You know. The Twelve. Konstantin. If someone has a hit on you. All that stuff.”

Villanelle smirked and tucked the piece of paper into her pocket. “I’ve always loved when you get dramatic and paranoid, you know that?”

“I’m being serious.” Eve crossed her arms and locked eyes with Villanelle, knowing the power that a good stare had over her. Villanelle raised her eyebrows contemptuously, and opened the door to the lobby. “Have a nice night, Eve.”

“Yeah. You too.”

Eve turned around and shivered, pulling her hood up. Her mind felt dazed and muddled, and manifested into physical exhaustion as she attempted to process everything that had happened in the two hours before. She had just turned the corner and paused to check her phone when she heard Villanelle’s voice softly behind her.

“Eve?”

Eve turned around to face Villanelle, who was slightly out of breath after having chased her for the second time that night.

“Oh hey, what’s-”

Villanelle skillfully pulled her into a deep kiss, holding her by the waist. When they broke away, Eve gaped at her, and Villanelle smiled softly as she tucked a strand of hair behind her head, cupped her cheek, and whispered before walking away, “I’m glad you chose me.”

In the weeks that followed, they fell into an odd, unspoken kind of routine. Villanelle would arrive punctually at Eve’s flat at seven o’clock on Friday nights, sometimes bringing a bottle of wine, or champagne, or a vase of flowers she handpicked from some stranger’s garden on the way over. Eve would open the door for her, take her coat, and serve her dinner: sometimes a feeble attempt at cooking, but more often take-out that she masterfully manipulated to look like a multi-course gourmet spread. They ate in silence, after which followed several episodes of Criminal Minds on Eve’s moth-eaten couch, the air hanging stiffly above them while their eyes locked on the TV.

Villanelle had never had the patience for TV shows before, but now they offered her a comforting and foreign sense of normalcy, even though she rarely paid attention to what was happening on screen. She liked to watch Eve out of the corner of her eye and study her face, how her brows furrowed as she analyzed the story, and how she leaned her cheek on her right hand when she started to get tired.

At the end of the night, Eve would lean against the wall and pull Villanelle into her with a newfound surge of confidence. She had never felt true lust with Niko, or anyone that she could remember aside from the occasional blackout one night stand in college, and for the first time she could remember since being introduced to the mere idea of Villanelle, she felt strangely in control. A familiar adrenaline rooted at the bottom of her stomach that she had first felt the day that Villanelle had held a knife to her throat would arise whenever she frantically pulled Villanelle into the wall, unbuttoned her jeans, and guided her hands between her legs, half-drunk and half making up for lost time.

Then there were the nights they fought. It always started as a conversation, generally revolving around Eve’s increasing desire to re-affiliate with Carolyn and resume their work on the Twelve, to which Villanelle would berate her.

“Why can’t you just move on from the Twelve? There’s no point anymore. I’m over them. It’s stupid.”

“Um, no. I don’t think you can just be ‘over’ a literal organized crime group that’s still up and running and probably has both of us on their hit list.”

Villanelle scoffed and crossed her arms. “Eve. They’re shit without me and they know it.”

“Oh yeah? What if they don’t think that?”

“I’m just trying to tell you we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“You don’t fucking know that. You don’t know anything. You literally know the same amount as me, which isn’t jack shit.” Eve slammed her hands onto the kitchen table and seethed at Villanelle, who spoke calmly.

“You’re being delusional, Eve.”

“Oh, I’m being delusional? I’m the delusional one here? Why are you even still in the country?”

Nights like these usually ended with several broken wine glasses and Villanelle slamming the door on her way out, leaving Eve in a weeping huddle on the bathroom floor, hating herself for who she was when she was with her, and aching for her to walk through the door and put her back together again. It was also on these nights that Villanelle dreamt about her mother, finding herself in the fields behind the house she was a child in, playing with a woman she knew but had trouble recognizing. She saw the house go up in flames, and her mother telling her to leave, and herself holding a black handgun to her head and pulling the trigger. She awoke drenched in sweat, the scar on her stomach throbbing, and silently wished for Eve to come and occupy the space next to her in the unfamiliar bed of whatever stranger’s home she was in for that night.

Naturally, the therapy had been Eve’s idea, and naturally, Villanelle had recoiled at the suggestion.

“No,” she quipped with finality, as they walked side by side to the makeshift BitterPill office, where Eve and the rest of the team had quietly reassembled following the raid. “Absolutely not.”

Eve quickened her pace to keep up with Villanelle, who had suddenly started to walk faster. “Okay,” she breathed, keeping her tone steady, “See, I knew you’d respond like this, and I just want to know why you’re against it.”

Villanelle stopped and turned to face Eve. “Because it’s bullshit,” she spat, with a defensiveness Eve knew she used to hide her vulnerability. “All that therapy stuff. I can just figure it out for myself. It’s a waste of time. And a perfect example of capitalism by the people.”

Eve furrowed her eyebrows. “Do you even know how capitalism works?”

“Yes.”

Eve exhaled and tousled her hand through her hair. “Okay, well that’s easy to say about therapy when you don’t feel things like normal people. But it helps. I’ve been a few times.”

Villanelle raised her eyebrows and smirked, looking her up and down. “Obviously it didn’t help that much.”

“Shut up.”

Villanelle began walking ahead of her again. “I’m not doing it, Eve.”

“Okay.”

“Mhm.”

“So there’s absolutely nothing I can do that’ll convince you to go?”

Villanelle shook her head smugly.

“Okay, then.” Eve turned and began to walk in the other direction. “Then I’m not doing whatever this is anymore.”

**One Month Later**

Villanelle shifts uncomfortably on the battered gray couch cushion, fixing her gaze on the minute hand of the clock above the doorway. The therapist is saying something about mutual deep seeded trauma manifesting into physical attraction. She tuned out half an hour ago.

“...Which also came as a result of Jo’s realization that she wasn’t satisfied in her marriage…”

There are more than a few things that their therapist, Wendy, doesn’t know about them, for instance that their names are not actually Sylviana and Jo, and that it wasn’t Sylviana the ex-convict that Jo became obsessed with, although that part isn’t entirely untrue. They offer her just enough truth, or rather made-up situations that are close enough to the truth, to be able to be therapized.

Villanelle only pays attention when she gets to talk about herself, which she quietly acknowledges is probably part of the problem, but she doesn’t care. A small part of her wishes she put more effort in, to make Eve happy, but has an intense dislike for people telling her how to feel, especially when she has trouble enough accessing her emotions for herself as it is.

She sleeps on the couch at Eve’s new place, which is a considerable upgrade from the bunker-esque dump she’d been in since Rome. It’s more convenient than switching safehouses every few days, and she figures that if the Twelve had a hit on her, they probably would have found her by now. Eve works during the day, and Villanelle prides herself on finding creative ways to keep herself entertained that don’t involve violence or excessive money spending. At night, the sex is aggressive and efficient; Eve calls her into the bedroom before she goes to sleep, pins her to the bed, grabs her hand, and holds it between her legs until she comes, while her own hand rests between Villanelle’s legs simultaneously. It’s usually over in a matter of minutes, with Eve banishing Villanelle back to the couch, and telling her to be sure the door is locked before going to bed.

“Sylviana? You still with us?”

Villanelle flinches as she finds herself jerked back into the drab, colorless office, where Eve and Wendy the therapist are staring at her.

“Sorry. What?”

“No worries. I was just talking about an assignment I want you both to do for next week.”

“Okay?”

Wendy smiles at her, and Villanelle swallows the impulse to knock over her swivel chair with her foot. “And what’s the assignment?”

“I want you and Jo to observe each other this week and make a list of the things that you like, or notice.”

Villanelle scowls. “Like Marriage Story?”

Wendy chuckles. “I guess, yeah. This is actually a pretty common exercise in this kind of work, and I think you’re both more than ready to try it out.”

Villanelle is fighting the urge to roll her eyes so aggressively that her head aches. “Okay. Fine. But that movie sucked.”

She had promised Eve before they started that she would do her best not to be snarky, but sometimes it’s just instinctive.

On their way home, Villanelle drags her feet on the sidewalk. “That lady is a bitch.”

Eve checks her phone and puts it in the pocket of her coat. “No she isn’t. You just have trust issues.”

“I don’t want to go anymore.”

Eve sighs and rubs her forehead. They have this conversation every week. “Just give it one more chance, okay?”

“You say that every time.”

Eve clenches her teeth and stops walking, her tone clipped. “Okay. You know what? Fine. Compromise. We do this thing she wants us to do, and if it doesn’t help with anything, we stop going, and you get out of the country. Deal?”

Villanelle stuffs her hands into her pockets and pouts, considering. “Fine,” she snaps, walking ahead of Eve, “But I’m still going to think it’s stupid no matter what.”

“I never said you wouldn’t.”

That evening, after the usual bickering and a few glasses of wine, Eve leans against the headrest of her bed and flips her work notepad to a blank page. It’s easy for her to come up with a multitude of reasons for why she hates Villanelle, and comes to the conclusion that she likes her for the same reasons she hates her. This, she decides, however, is probably not what their therapist had in mind.

She likes the way Villanelle touches her, and wants her, and makes her feel desired. She likes how Villanelle occupies the empty space in her flat. A part of her likes the fact that their relationship is damaged and unconventional. But they both know all these things already.

She places the notepad on the nightstand, covering the words on the dreaded manila envelope she hasn’t touched since Niko’s lawyer handed it to her silently in the hospital waiting room. At first she had thought there had been a mistake when she slid the sheets of paper from the envelope and read the words Marital Settlement: Petition for Divorce. She insisted that Niko was still in shock, and that this was out of character, and that she needed to speak to him, but the lawyer had remained firm and expressionless, telling her that a restraining order was in process, and that further legal action would be taken if she didn’t comply.

“A restraining order? Are you fucking serious?”

She told Villanelle not to come by that week, and instead spent her days poring over their wedding photos, cooking his favorite foods and drinking her coffee black, the way he liked it, in an attempt to soak up every last bit of normalcy she could scavenge from a life before Villanelle. It’s been weeks now and the papers remain untouched. She’s ignored every call from Niko’s lawyer and hates herself for it, since she of all people should know that avoiding a situation tends to make everything worse. Tomorrow, she thinks, sliding under the covers and switching off the light. I’ll do it tomorrow. Or the next day if not.

Eve dreams about him. She sees fragments of their old life together intertwined with the image of him covered in blood, clutching his neck, and falling against the broken barn door on a farm somewhere in the Polish countryside. She’s never slept well since Villanelle, but her nights are particularly tortured now.

From the other room, she hears Villanelle stirring on the couch, her breath shaking, and Eve knows they share equally sleepless nights. The first time it had happened, Eve had shaken her awake, her forehead beaded with sweat, and Villanelle had insisted that Eve had been hallucinating, and that she was fine, and not to wake her up again. Now, when she wakes up to hear Villanelle’s sobbing in the night, she takes a pair of earplugs from her dresser, puts them in, and doesn’t hear anything at all.

Several days later, she finds Villanelle in the kitchen clad in a silk bathrobe and pouring coffee into a mug. Eve takes a sudden notice to how Villanelle’s hands grip the coffee pot, how her eyes widen to follow the hot stream of liquid, and soften when she sets it down. She perks up when she sees Eve.

“Morning.”

Eve sits down at the counter and pulls the coffee mug towards her. “Hey.”

“How’d you sleep?”

“Fine.” Eve takes a sip of her coffee. “How’s your list coming?”

Villanelle frowns. “What list?”

“You know what list.”

“I don’t know what list.”

“From the appointment on Tuesday.”

“Oh, right.” Villanelle smiles smugly, leaning her elbows on the countertop. “I don’t actually have to do it, it turns out.”

“Yes you do.”

“No I don’t.” Villanelle’s voice raises in pitch. “I already like everything about you.”

“Shut up.”

“I do. You can be really difficult and annoying sometimes but-”

“No, you’re just trying to come up with an excuse to get out of doing it,” Eve snaps, downing her coffee and grabbing her bag. “Can you please just be mature about one thing? Just one time? This is getting ridiculous.”

Villanelle appears wounded, and Eve instantly feels a pang of regret, but her frustration is consuming. “I don’t want to be doing this either, okay? You’re right that it sucks. But I’m just trying to find some way to make this not be impossible anymore.”

Villanelle looks at the floor and speaks softly.

“I hate fighting with you, Eve.”

“So don’t give me a reason to turn everything into a fight.” Eve grabs her coat and drapes it over her arm. “Grow up, do the stupid homework, and get over yourself.”

She pulls the front door open, and Villanelle calls hesitantly from the kitchen.

“You don’t have work today. It’s Saturday.”

Eve freezes in the doorway, and feels her cheeks flush. It’s Saturday.

She exhales and turns around, pulling the door shut behind her and dropping her bag to the floor, avoiding eye contact with Villanelle. She runs her fingers through her hair and massages her forehead, sinking into a chair by the front window.

“Are you going to apologize for yelling at me?”

Eve mumbles something unintelligible and sulks out the front window.

Villanelle puts the mugs into the sink and turns on the water. “And the therapist thinks I’m the one with the anger issues. Interesting.”

Eve avoids her for the rest of the morning, seals herself in the bedroom, and hyper focuses her energy on the influx of paperwork that she’s been putting off all week. Villanelle takes a pint of ice cream from the freezer and a spoon, and lounges across the couch that doubles as her bed. After a few minutes, she spots Eve’s work notepad on the counter and picks up a pen with the intention of doodling on her notes, when she notices her name across the paper in Eve’s untidy scrawl.

_Villanelle saved me from my own normalcy. Do I like that? I don’t know._

She furrows her eyebrows, and scans the rest of the list.

_I like how she takes up so much space. Everywhere. Literally and figuratively. I like when she leaves her shit lying all over the house, and wanders randomly into rooms because she’s bored, and always wants to know what I’m doing, even if it can be a pain in the ass sometimes._

_I like that she’s always wanted to know me as much as I’ve wanted to know her._

She traces her thumb over the smudges of ink on the edge of the paper.

_I love everything she hates about herself, and hate everything she loves about herself._

“Wrong,” Villanelle whispers to herself, flopping back onto the couch, “I don’t hate anything about myself.”

_I like the way she pours coffee in the morning._

She reads the list a second time and smiles softly, flipping to a blank page and holding the pen to the paper.

_I like when Eve is a bitch and hides from me in her room all day._

She smirks, and holds the pen to her lips, studying the cracks in the ceiling and thinking back to the morning.

_I like when she forgets what day of the week it is._

She eats a spoonful of ice cream, and her gaze flicks past a piece of paper sitting on the counter.

_I like when she leaves her to-do lists lying around the house._

_I like that she still listens to music on a boombox radio like it’s the 80’s._

_I like the way she touches her chin with her index finger when she’s thinking._

_I like when she walks in the door at the end of the day and lets her hair down._

Eve makes her feel weak. It’s an unfamiliar feeling that she’s always resented her for, yet somehow continues to crave. She used to hate the fact that she had worked her whole life to be an unbreakable force, one that always took control and got drunk on her own power, only to be brought to her knees by a dark-haired woman who somehow found a way into her head. Now the feeling gives her a surge of adrenaline that roots itself deep in her chest, and makes her wonder if maybe she’s more normal than she thinks.

She sets the notepad on the floor next to the couch and eats another spoonful of ice cream. Eve emerges from the hallway a second later, avoiding eye contact, and frowns when she glances at Villanelle.

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

Eve begins to rifle through the drawers by the counter. “Eat right from the container. Put it in a bowl.”

“You don’t even like this flavor.”

“It’s not about that.” Eve shuts the drawers and fumbles through the scattered piles of displaced objects on the counter. “It’s about common courtesy. Have you seen my notepad?”

“Which notepad?”

“The only notepad I ever use.”

Villanelle stretches her legs across the couch cushions. “I don’t think so, no.”

Eve sighs and rubs her face with her hands. “Fuck.”

“What’s so special about it?”

Eve grabs her handbag and turns it over on the counter. “It had the notes from that meeting on Wednesday on it.”

“Eve. What kind of idiot doesn’t take notes on the computer?”

“You are not being helpful right now.”

Villanelle smiles.

_I like when I get under her skin._

Later, they order Indian takeout for the second night in a row, and silently watch some mindless reality elimination show that Eve appears to be unironically invested in.

_I like how she can become so passionate about a person she’s never even met._

At midnight, they turn off the TV and Villanelle puts their dishes in the sink. Eve yawns, and moves to stand up.

“Jesus, it’s right here.”

“What?”

“My notepad.” Eve stuffs the notepad into the pocket of her sweatpants and stands up. “How did you not see it? You were on the couch all day.”

Villanelle shrugs. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

Eve turns into the hallway. “Don’t forget to turn the front light off.”

She turns around and rubs her eyes, fighting a sudden wave of exhaustion. Villanelle is leaning against the counter, her eyes wide and unguarded.

“Can I sleep with you in your bed tonight?”

Eve shifts nervously, having dreaded the day she would hear this question since Villanelle moved in.

“Um, I don’t really think that’s a good idea.”

“Just to sleep,” Villanelle insists, taking a step forward. “I won’t try to do anything. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

Eve wets her lips, willing herself to stall the conversation as far as possible, and feels herself recoil as she stupidly asks, “What’s wrong with the couch?”

Villanelle raises her eyebrows, forcing Eve to look down. “I just get lonely out here sometimes.” She swallows and glances up at the ceiling, her voice softening. “Sometimes I have trouble sleeping. I don’t know why.”

The reality is that Villanelle doesn’t know how many more nights she can be feverishly jerked awake after seeing her house go up in flames or her mother slumped over on the floor in her sleep over and over again. She hasn’t had nightmares since Anna’s husband, and usually doesn’t even remember her dreams when she wakes up. Sleeping has become a tedious chore that she endures alone night after night, all with Eve a room away from her.

“Try not going on your phone before bed. Blue light is bad for sleep.”

Villanelle lets out an exasperated laugh. “Eve. We’re going to couple’s therapy and we don’t even sleep in the same bed?”

“It’s not couple’s therapy, it’s-” Eve hesitates when she realizes that couple’s therapy is exactly what it is, and how deep into denial she’s sunk.

She exhales and runs her hand through her hair. “Just-not tonight. Sorry.”

They stand still for a moment, before Eve turns back into the hall. “Goodnight.”

“Why don’t you kiss me?”

Eve freezes, and feels her mouth go dry. She forces herself to face her, but stares firmly at the floor.

“What do you mean?”

“Eve,” Villanelle laughs exasperatedly and moves closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. Eve feels her breath hitch as Villanelle’s face hovers inches away from hers, and she wets her lips.

“How come you make me do all that other stuff to you but you won’t even kiss me?”

She traces a finger down Eve’s cheek, and Eve can sense the presence of the old, cutthroat Villanelle looming over her, sending a shiver through her chest. When she speaks, her voice is low and breathless.

“I’m going to bed.”

Villanelle smirks and steps back, turning to the couch.

“Goodnight, Boss.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Eve remembers the notepad in her pocket after she gets into bed, and pulls it out to read her list over. It’s less of a list and more of a collection of musings, and frustrations, and spontaneous thoughts, which she knows strays from the assignment, but it’s strangely cathartic for her.

_How can she understand the human condition so intricately but be so oblivious to the feelings of everyone else around her?_

She flips to a new page, and is met with unfamiliar handwriting.

_I like when Eve is a bitch and hides from me in her room all day._

Eve’s breath catches in her throat. She reads the rest of the list and flips to the next page, and then the next.

_I like that she always says the same thing to me before going to bed. Don’t forget to turn the front light off._

_I like the way she keeps her toothbrush in a wine glass in the bathroom._

_I like that she never uses filler words when she’s talking._

_I like when she tries to cook and it goes horribly wrong._

_I like that she only knows how to cook one thing._

_I like that she lets me make her coffee in the morning._

_I like how she hates doing the dishes._

_I like how she touches my hand sometimes without noticing when she’s standing next to me._

_I like when she catches me looking at her from across the room and tries to hide that she’s smiling._

Villanelle has filled four pages. Eve reads and re-reads them three times, studying her handwriting. She’s always thought that she was something to be consumed by Villanelle; an object of fascination and pleasure, and that it was this fixation that drove her to stay, and never considered the fact that Villanelle might actually see her, the little things, and want her for something more.

She puts the notepad on the nightstand and turns off the light, staring up at the ceiling, before sleep overtakes her.

She wakes up in a haze of fatigue, with a dull ache spreading through her head. She fumbles disorientedly for her phone on the nightstand and squints at the screen. It’s 2:52.

Fuck.

She was dreaming about him again. It’s the fourth night this week she’s woken up like this, and she feels her frustration begin to boil over as she swings her legs over the side of her bed and trods down the hallway into the kitchen for a glass of water.

It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, but she sees the faint outline of Villanelle perched on the edge of the couch when she comes into the kitchen, massaging her face in her hands and breathing unsteadily. Villanelle doesn’t notice her at first, but in a matter of seconds they’re locking eyes from across the room. The air is stiff, and Eve feels herself rooted in place as she stares into Villanelle’s drained and wide gaze.

“Can’t sleep?”

Villanelle offers a weak smile that somehow still manages to be smug, and shakes her head.

Eve feels her breaths quicken, and swallows.

“Come on, then.”

She turns into the hallway. Villanelle follows silently, and Eve quietly observes her swollen eyes and the tear stains trailing down her cheeks as she pulls her hair up and climbs into bed. Villanelle pauses apprehensively, waiting to see if this is some kind of morality test, before wordlessly sliding in under the covers next to her and turning to face her. They study each other for a few moments. Villanelle reaches out and tucks a loose strand of Eve’s hair behind her head.

“So did you read my list?”

A hint of a smile plays at the edge of Villanelle’s lips, and she nods. “Don’t be mad.”

Eve rolls onto her back and exhales. “It’s fine. I also read yours anyway.”

“Eve!” Villanelle feigns shock and pushes herself up onto her elbow. “You shouldn’t go reading people’s personal things. That breaks some serious boundaries, you know.”

“Goodnight.”

“Wendy would be so disappointed.”

“Goodnight, Villanelle.”

Eve turns onto her side and faces away from her, closing her eyes.

“Eve?”

She turns. “What?”

Villanelle narrows her eyes and holds her gaze firm. “What do you dream about?”

A sharp twinge shoots through her stomach as she frantically racks her brain for a false answer.

“You dream about Niko, don’t you.”

It’s a statement rather than a question, and Eve stutters for an excuse.

“I’m-what?”

“It’s okay.” Villanelle inches closer to her. “I dream about my mother.”

Eve’s breath catches in her throat at Villanelle’s mention of her mother. They seem to have established an unspoken agreement that they never discuss what happened in Russia, just as they never talk about Rome.

Eve suddenly feels wide awake. “What do you see her doing?”

She can see Villanelle smiling painfully in the dark.

“Us doing bad things. Hurting each other. All the normal mother-daughter stuff.”

“That’s not normal.”

“I know. It was a joke, Eve.”

“Oh.”

They’re silent. Eve stares at the ceiling.

“How’d you know I dream about him?”

She can feel Villanelle’s wide eyes staring up at her.

“I know how normal he was.”

“Yeah, infuriatingly normal. And somehow so odd at the same time.” Eve’s tone is clipped with a hint of resentment. Villanelle snickers.

“You want the normal things again. And you’re mad because you took it away from yourself.”

Eve is silent, infuriated at how easily Villanelle always manages to slink into her mind.

“Look, you don’t really know anything about this, okay? Can you just go to sleep or go back to the couch?”

“Eve, I know everything about you.”

“Shut up.”

“You could know everything about me. If you wanted.”

Villanelle’s eyes are soft in the dark, and Eve finds herself rendered expressionless. After a moment she speaks, and her voice breaks.

“I just can’t fucking forgive myself for what I did to him.”

Villanelle wipes a tear from Eve’s cheek with her thumb.

“You don’t have to forgive anyone, Eve.”

Eve turns back to her and stares into her face, their eyes only breaking contact when they finally fall asleep.

Later in the night, Eve is awoken by the familiar sound of Villanelle’s staggered breathing and muted sobs beside her. Instead of reaching for the earplugs on the nightstand, Eve presses her face softly into Villanelle’s back, reaches out, and slips her arm around her waist in the dark.


	2. forgiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two! this is basically just a psychoanalysis of villaneve at this point lmao

They share the bed in the nights that follow, falling into another silent routine that neither of them formally establish. A soft ache settles over Eve when she leans over to switch the light off and turns to her side, allowing the faint sounds of Villanelle’s breathing to lull her into sleep. When she inevitably feels Villanelle shaking next to her, she silently reaches out and grasps her hand, pulling her closer and out of the feverish false reality that consumes her each night.

“She’s a master at other people’s emotions.” she explains to Wendy, during one of their private sessions a week later, “She gets what makes people tick, you know? The thing they really, desperately want or love, and then she twists and manipulates it to be in her control.”

Wendy scribbles something onto her notesheet. “Well, Jo, it sounds to me like you know her better than you think you do.”

“Oh, yeah. I know that.” Eve leans forward in her chair. “I know her better than anyone. Which isn’t saying much, since no one really knows her at all, but that’s not even the issue.”

“The list thing seemed to go over pretty well, yes?”

“It was interesting, I guess. But I don’t know.”

“So what do you think is the issue?”

Eve leans back and folds her arms across her chest, sighing.

“I still haven’t figured her out.”

“Is that something you really need to do, though?” Wendy furrows her eyebrows and purses her lips, as though it’s a question Eve already knows the answer to. “I mean, isn’t that what makes a complicated relationship work? The process of learning and adapting as a pair over time rather than getting frustrated over little differences or inconsistencies?”

“We’re way too far gone for that,” Eve quips, unable to shake the feeling that she’s not receiving much advice but rather feeding this woman’s superiority complex. “It’s not just about respecting our differences. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the issues we have. It’s-”

“I wasn’t saying it was.” Wendy cuts her off efficiently, her voice calm. “I was telling you in a complicated way that these things take time.”

“I know that. I’m not trying to rush anything. I just wish I had a better grasp on this entire...I don’t know. Everything.”

Wendy gives a subtle nod and flips to a new page. 

“Jo, can I ask a vaguely unprofessional question?”

“Um, sure.”

“Do you love her?”

Something about the crude bluntness of her reminds Eve of Carolyn, which hasn’t made it any easier to open up. She swallows, and darts her eyes across the ceiling.

“It’s not like that. I mean, in a sense, a superficial sense, yeah, I guess it is, but there’s more to it than...What I mean is that there’s-”

“Jo, it’s a yes or no question.” Wendy doesn’t look up from her notesheet, her eyebrows raised matter-of-factly. Eve stumbles over her words as her mind runs seemingly blank.

“I’m-I don’t think it’s a yes or no question for me right now.”

Wendy shuts her notebook and exhales, looking at Eve with finality. “Right then. Let’s make that your assignment for next time, shall we?”

She’s starting to think that maybe Villanelle was right about Wendy.

That evening, they sit across from each other at the kitchen table drinking hard cider and a particular kind of frozen veggie burger that Villanelle has developed a sudden affinity for. The sound of rain on the windows fills the silence of the room. Eve leans forward on the table, her hands clasped together, and speaks calmly and businesslike.

“Do you love me?”

Villanelle furrows her eyebrows with contempt and crosses her arms. “Eve,” she says, “What kind of question is that?”

“An honest one?”

Villanelle smirks softly and leans forward onto the table. “Well, the last time I answered that question, it didn’t go over so well did it?”

Eve shudders, willing herself away from the memory of stifling air in sun-soaked ruins, and the muddled sound of a tall woman calling out declarations of an impossible future across the piles of stone. 

“You’re different now.”

Villanelle’s eyes widen and she smiles, her voice suddenly childlike. “Do you really think I am?”

“Well you’re living in my apartment and sleeping in my bed. So yeah. I’d say so.” 

Villanelle smiles smugly, and starts to clear the dishes from the table. “Tell me how I’m different.”

“Why?”

“For validation purposes,” Villanelle answers, matter-of-factly, rolling up her sleeves and turning on the sink.

Eve sighs, and leans back in her chair. “Well I guess the most obvious thing is that you’re not killing people anymore.”

“Not that you know about, anyway.”

“Very funny.”

Eve studies her from behind as she rinses the plates and silverware, each movement seeming to be its own intricate detail.

“Two weeks ago I probably would have been doing all the dishes while you lounged around on your ass online shopping.” She pauses, speaking deliberately. “And then we would have gotten into a fight about it, and you would have ended up fake crying to make me feel guilty, and I would have spent the rest of the night in my room.”

Villanelle is staring at her, mildly offended and simultaneously surprised by the bluntness of Eve’s statement. “I wasn’t fake crying,” she quips defensively, “it was a lot of new emotion all at once. I was overwhelmed.”

“Sure.”

“I was!”

Eve half-smiles with satisfaction at her successful attempt to get under Villanelle’s skin. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which question?”

“Do you love me?”

Villanelle’s face falls, and she clenches her teeth.

“Why should I answer if you don’t even think I can?”

Eve feels a sudden heat begin to rise in her chest. She stands up slowly, making her way over to the sink, and tentatively reaches her hand to Villanelle’s cheek.

“I know you can, now.”

Villanelle inhales sharply, and feels herself crumbling, Her voice a whisper.

“How?”

There are only two people who have seen her like this. Eve and her mother.

Eve brushes her thumb over her cheek. 

“You were going to let me walk away.”

Villanelle’s lips part slightly, and she hastily wipes tears from her face with the heel of her hand, turning back to the sink. “Empty the dishwasher, would you?”

Eve smiles to herself and opens the dishwasher.

She’s awoken at the usual time of some ungodly hour of the morning. Villanelle’s breaths are staggered and weak, and Eve can feel heat radiating off of her from her side of the bed. Per routine, she reaches across and slowly pulls Villanelle’s feverish body into her, feeling her breathing slow as she clasps her hand.

“Shh, It’s okay.” she whispers, holding her head to her chest. “You’re here.”

Villanelle clings to Eve’s shirt and tries to bring herself into reality, shaking against her.  
“You were dreaming. You were dreaming. It’s okay.”

Eventually, she feels her finally loosen her grip, and her breathing slow. She traces the outline of her jaw with the back of her hand.

In the dark, Villanelle’s eyes are their own separate entity that consume Eve. And Eve is exhausted. 

She’s so unbelievably tired.

At first, she catches Villanelle off guard, but within seconds she’s kissing her back with a gentleness that’s almost out of character. Eve feels Villanelle rest her fingers lightly on her cheek, and she pulls her up from the bed into a sitting position.

They sit with their knees touching, the sheets tangled underneath them. Eve feels a foreign surge of emotion rising from her chest that she struggles to keep contained. Fumbling in the dark, she pulls Villanelle’s shirt over her head and moves into her, gripping the sides of her head in her hands, when she feels Villanelle break away. They’re silent, their breathing laboured, and gazes fixed.

“Do you want to do this?”

The softness and concern that’s laced in Villanelle’s voice takes her by surprise. They’ve touched each other so many times before this. Fleeting, meaningless moments of pleasure that finally brought Eve her own sense of control when she pinned Villanelle against her and held her down. The power and dominance she had been craving to assert for so long over the person she had ruined herself for. It was always such a thrill in the moment, almost as though it was an act of rebellion. But Eve was always left feeling dissatisfied and with an itching sensation of wanting to crawl out of her own skin. Now, for the first time since the bridge, it feels like they’ve almost reached equilibrium, and Eve wants to be shattered into pieces all over again.

So she cups Villanelle’s cheek lightly in the palm of her hand, leans in, and whispers, “Yes.”

It’s so many things. Villanelle presses herself against her and they fumble for each other’s lips, and arms, and legs. It’s sound and color and tears and sleepless nights and unfamiliar cities and the bodies of strangers and a year and a half’s worth of heartache bursting out from the recesses of their minds into reality. Eve feels a laugh rising within her, wondering if all this time it’s been this easy, and then grips the bed sheets shaking as Villanelle brings her back to the present with her touch that feels completely new.

Afterwards, they lie staring at the ceiling, the air in the room stiff.

“You know I didn’t want to love you, Eve.”

Eve turns onto her side, surveying Villanelle’s profile as her eyes remain fixated upwards. “I know,” she whispers, tracing a finger down her arm lightly. 

“I didn’t really want to love anyone, actually. I thought it made people weak.”

Villanelle’s words hang in the air above them. Eve swallows, still not used to this emotionally available Villanelle, and speaks.

“I’ve never hated myself for something more than I have for wanting you.”

Villanelle smirks and turns onto her side, tucking her arm under her head. Eve massages her face with her hands and exhales, laughing in disbelief.

“I mean, you think you didn’t want to have feelings for me? I was fucking married. And you were kind of a psychopath. The odds weren’t really in my favor.”

Villanelle narrows her eyes and smiles with the familiar smugness that Eve knows so well then. She moves closer to her, until she can feel her breathing against her lips, and whispers, “So then how did we end up here, Eve? Hm?”

Eve traces the outline of Villanelle’s lips with her finger and speaks before she realizes what she’s about to say.

“I love you.”

Villanelle suddenly breaks into a laugh, and Eve immediately wants to slink into a dark hole and never re-emerge. “What?”

Villanelle runs her fingers through Eve’s hair and smiles. “I know you do, Eve. It’s really obvious.”

“Okay, well. I don’t know.”

“You know we taught each other how.”

For the rest of the night, they sleep quietly and dreamlessly.


	3. reality

Villanelle knows that therapists aren’t legally allowed to have any particular bias towards their clients, but it’s obvious that she and Wendy share a mutual dislike of each other.

Every week is the same. Villanelle shows up to her private session, blames her lateness on the unpredictableness of public transport, sits on the couch across from Wendy in her swivel chair, and proceeds to give disinterested one-word answers for the next hour. Wendy seems to like making passive-aggressive comments in return, as if the two women are embarking on a battle of the egos, and Villanelle always leaves her appointments with inflated confidence, though probably for the wrong reasons.

She sits across the couch, with her legs extended onto the arm, and raises her eyebrows. She and Wendy have been staring at each other for the past three minutes in silence. Villanelle’s face is relaxed and amused, while Wendy purses her lips.

“So. Let’s start with how you are then, shall we?”

Villanelle smirks as Wendy clicks her pen and folds her hands across her lap, waiting for her answer. She swings her legs off the arm of the couch and leans forward onto her knees.

“Eye contact is such a powerful thing, Wendy. Don’t you think so?”

She feels satisfaction rise as Wendy’s jaw tightens and her eyes narrow.

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

She fiddles with her pen. Villanelle edges forward and narrows her gaze.

“It’s almost like I can trick you into thinking that I can read your mind.”

Wendy appears bored. Villanelle drops her voice to a whisper. 

“Look into my eyes.”

Wendy abruptly closes her notebook in exasperation and clenches her jaw. “Do we really have to do this every week?” she snaps, “Can you just not do the pointless games and answer my question? It’s not that hard.” Flustered, she readjusts herself on the swivel chair and sighs. Villanelle leans back into the couch.

“You are a shit therapist, you know that?”

Wendy huffs and rolls her eyes. “You’re not the easiest client to work with.”

“That’s no excuse.” Villanelle feigns offense, trying to get her to her breaking point. “Admit it. You like Eve more than me.”

“Eve?”

Shit. Villanelle recovers quickly.

“Oh. My bad. I meant Jo. I call her Eve sometimes, when we’re…” She leans forward and bites her bottom lip, smiling coyly. “Well it’s just a little biblical fantasy we do every so often.”

“I see.” Wendy clicks her pen and scribbles something in her notebook. Villanelle feels a wave of relief.

“In answer to your question, I don’t discuss my personal connections or relationships with other clients.”

“So that’s a yes then?”

Wendy seeths, and Villanelle leans back, crossing her arms. “That’s what I thought.”

She smirks at her for a few moments, before Wendy gives an exasperated sigh and breaks the silence.

“How are things with Jo, then?”

Villanelle scrunches her face. “What business is that of yours?”

Wendy hates her so much.

The truth is that she still has nightmares, but she doesn’t have to go through them alone anymore. So many things that she’s been wanting to say for so long are finally being voiced. Eve is softer with her, and more patient. On clear nights, they sit in the back garden and look at the stars, and sometimes she’ll tuck a strand of hair behind Eve’s head, lean forward, and kiss her.

It’s the last thing from perfect, but perfect is what she used to be.

“I don’t know. Fine.”

Wendy nods, looking down at her notes.

She likes to pretend that their life is mundane. Ordinary, but happy. It’s the life that Niko offered but failed to provide. She studies her when she’s brushing her teeth, or doing the dishes, and tries to convince herself that it’s always been like this. That they met in some conventional way and Villanelle gave Eve the kind of life she intended to have instead of tearing it apart. It’s in these moments that Villanelle feels herself ache as everything else around them seems to fall away.  
“How are you, then?”

She’s startled back into reality by Wendy’s disinterested voice.

“I’m doing wonderfully. Thank you for asking.”

The pen scratches on the surface of the paper.

“Really. Very considerate of you.”

Wendy snaps the notebook shut. “Look. We can do this the hard way, which seems to be what you want, but for the sake of-”

Her words are suddenly cut off by the sound of faint shouts coming from the hallway. Villanelle instinctively reaches for the small pistol that sits on the back of her belt whenever she leaves the flat. She hadn’t wanted to carry it, but Eve had insisted.

“You know what they say. You’d rather kill someone than get killed, right?”

“Eve. No one says that.”

“Whatever.”

She doesn’t like the power that having the pistol gives her, and often wonders who it’s killed before her. She had once asked Eve whether she thought Villanelle or the pistol had a higher body count, and Eve had told her that it was unhealthy to think things like that when she saw a weapon.

The voices from the hallway grow nearer, and Wendy stands up from her chair, furrowing her eyebrows. “I’m just going to go see what that’s about.”

She opens the door cautiously and steps out into the hallway. What follows is a sudden wave of gunshots followed by a scream, and low, unintelligible male voices speaking in hurried tones. Villanelle stands up from the couch and tightens her grip on the pistol, swallowing a rising suspicion that’s confirmed a few seconds later when she hears the unmistakable clip of Russian from outside the door.

They’ve finally got her.

She rolls her eyes and positions herself in the corner of the room, standing nonchalantly with her hands in her pockets. Three men burst into the room a moment later, whipping around handheld machine guns. She smiles.

“Afternoon, gentlemen.” She says calmly, “Took you long enough to find me.”

One of the men begins yelling orders at her in Russian. “Speak English,” she spits, taking a step forward. “And machine guns? Really? Are you all compensating for something?”

The tallest man who stands in the middle lowers his gun slightly and glowers at her, speaking in broken and heavily accented English.

“We know what you did. You’re being sent back to Twelve headquarters. Trying you for treason.”

“Treason?” Villanelle laughs, “Do you even know what that means? That’s not possible.”

They stare at her blankly.

“The Twelve isn’t a country, you idiots.”

The man raises his gun. “You come with us.”

“Or what?” Villanelle mocks him, speaking gruffly. “You take me back to Russia and torture me until I apologize?”

He shakes his head. “Painful execution.”

“Oh no. I’m so scared.” Villanelle sticks out her bottom lip and knows she’s on thin ice. The middle man takes a lumbering step forward, and points the barrel of the gun to the center of her forehead. “On your knees,” he growls.

“Can I just ask one question?”

“On your knees!” He pushes her to the ground with the gun.

“Ow, okay, okay. Jeez. Calm down.” She widens her eyes and looks up at him, smiling complacently. “Why’d it take so long?

“Needed to organize cleanup operation.”

“I see.”

There’s an awkward silence. Villanelle wants to laugh at the irony of it all.

“Is my therapist dead?”

“She wasn’t therapist. Informant. Still had to kill her.”

“Hold on. Wendy tipped you off?”

The man grunts, and Villanelle scoffs.

“Well that explains why she was so terrible at her job. The bitch.”

“No more talking.” The man shoves the barrel into her head, and Villanelle feels her stomach drop.

“Can I just say one more thing?”

“What?”

The three men don’t even have time to register the fact that she’s pulling out a gun until after they’re bleeding on the floor. It’s over in three, clean shots. Villanelle wipes off the handle of the pistol with her sleeve, steps over one of the bodies, and walks into the hall. Wendy’s lifeless form is lying next to the door to the elevator, still holding her pen. Villanelle studies her for a moment, leans down, and sharply whispers, “Snitches get stitches” into her ear.

She waits for the elevator for a few seconds before deciding to take the stairs. A white heat flushes in her cheeks, and she feels her hands begin to shake as she descends the eleven flights of stairs, racing against her own adrenaline.

Before, she would always experience a blackout when she killed someone. It was a comforting, fleeting rush that she equated to how she thought people felt when they drank too much and fell out of reality. It stopped after she killed her mother. She started to see them, the final look of desperation and terror that filled their eyes as she snuffed them out.

Her footsteps are overwhelmingly heavy on the stairs as she frantically tries to distract herself from thinking about the three bodies lying on the floor of the office upstairs. The bodies that she killed so effortlessly, efficiently, and with such skill. She didn’t even have to think. It’s a part of her, somehow ingrained in her DNA. And she thought she was changing.

On the seventh landing, she grips the railing and doubles over, beads of sweat streaming down her face, and her breathing laboured. The visions of the bodies above her have morphed into a twisted image of her mother’s lifeless body sprawled down the stairwell, a corporeal pool of blood forming at her feet. She clutches her side and gasps for breath, losing control of herself as she stumbles down the stairway and shakily pushes the door open into the air of the early evening.  
There’s sound, and light, and color, and incessant noise, and a splitting pain in her skull as though it’s about to crack open. She slumps against the side of the building, shaking uncontrollably. For the first time she can remember since she was young, she’s terrified.

After what feels like an endless cycle of panic, her breathing finally slows. She gets to her feet unsteadily, her hands still shaking, and vomits into a flowerpot by the entrance of the building. The sun hangs low in the sky, casting dusty orange streaks across the pavement.

She takes the underground home. It’s packed with end of work-day commuters in stiff clothing, and the voices around her seem to be amplified to a head-splitting degree. She breathes heavily, clumsily trying to loosen the collar of her shirt while frantically darting her eyes around the train, paranoid that they’ve somehow followed her. Her mouth tastes metallic, and she swallows, feeling her throat tighten.

“Are you okay, love?”

She looks to her right and sees a concerned looking businessman staring at her.

“I’m fine.” She shakily rolls up her sleeves and wipes sweat from her forehead, startling the other passengers when she yells, “God, can this thing go any slower?”

She arrives at Eve’s flat a quarter of an hour later, still in a daze and unable to shake the image of her mother’s lifeless form. When she opens the door, she hears the muffled sounds of Eve in the kitchen, and peels off her coat with shaking hands.

“Hey. I’m trying to make this weird stir fry thing. Can you come tell me if this looks edible?”

She’s rooted to the floor, and steadies herself on the wall. Eve appears a moment later wearing an apron and holding a wooden spoon.

“Don’t make fun of the apron. I didn’t want to do more laundry.”

Villanelle barely registers Eve’s words, and stares forward. 

“Are you okay?”

She forces herself to look at Eve, who crosses her arms and wears a look of concern that sends an ache through Villanelle’s chest.

“Don’t be mad.”

Eve furrows her eyebrows and takes a step forward. “What happened?”

Villanelle sucks air in through her teeth and bites her lip. “Well it just so happens to turn out that Wendy was a double agent who tipped us off to the Twelve, and a bunch of hitmen with machine guns showed up during my appointment, so we should probably get out of the country like, now.”

Eve stares at her, dumbfounded. Villanelle fidgets nervously.

“Are you mad?”

Eve closes her eyes and holds up her hand. “Say all that again?”

“I told you. Wendy was working for the Twelve this whole time and told them everything, so they showed up.”

“Funny.”

“I’m being serious, Eve.”

Eve gawks at her.

“So you just, you just left?”

“No. I shot them first, and then-”

“Hold on, you killed them?”

Villanelle swallows and feels her breath hitch. “It’s not like I really had a choice-”

“Oh my god.” Eve paces frantically and runs her hands through her hair. “Why the hell didn’t you call me? You came all the way back here and didn’t think to tell me what was happening and that we’d have to get out?”

“I wasn’t thinking.” Villanelle feels her throat tighten. “You can’t be mad at me, you-”

“You fucking killed them.” Eve barks, the panic rising in her voice. “You just dug us both into an even deeper hole with them, and now they’re really gonna crack down on getting us, and you probably just lead them back to where we live.”

“Eve-”

“What the fuck were you thinking? Why can’t you ever think anything through instead of just doing whatever the hell you want?”

Villanelle feels a sharp pain in her chest. “You think I wanted to kill them?”

Eve purses her lips. “Did you enjoy it?

“Eve,” Villanelle laughs in disbelief, “There’s a difference between killing some nobody for money and killing a guy with a machine gun who wants to shoot you.”

“Oh yeah? How much of a difference is there really?”

“You think I enjoyed it?” Villanelle’s voice breaks. “You really think I had fun doing it, huh? You know we’d both be dead if I hadn’t shot them.”

“That’s not the point. You don’t get that there’s literally no way out of this for us now, and it’s because you couldn’t control your impulses and swallow your ego for five fucking minutes, and now we have to drop everything just like that, not to mention they’re probably-”

“Shut up,” Villanelle bellows, casting Eve into a stunned silence. “Shut up. Why do you always act like you know everything and I don’t?”

“I’m-”

“Does it make you feel tough, Eve?” Villanelle takes a step toward her, and she backs up slowly. “Is that what this is? All this time you’ve just wanted to show me you’re better than me. Right?”

Her voice is broken. Eve is backed against the wall, breathing heavily and staring into Villanelle’s crazed expression. 

“Hey. Just slow down-” She tentatively reaches out for her hand, but Villanelle snaps away.

“Don’t touch me.”

Eve feels a sting in her chest and follows Villanelle as she storms into the kitchen. “This-this is good, okay? Remember Wendy said that there might be some-”

“Wendy wasn’t a real fucking therapist.” Villanelle screams, picking up a vase from the counter and smashing it to the floor. “She was a part of the Twelve just like all the other shit in our lives.” 

She picks up an empty water glass and hurls it against the wall, shattering it into pieces. Eve has never seen her come close to anything like this before. It’s so tragic and somehow so beautiful that a part of her just wants to watch her fall apart, but she grabs Villanelle’s arm as she picks up another glass and pins it to her side.  
“Don’t touch me.”

Eve wrenches the glass from Villanelle’s unsteady fingers and places it on the counter, pulling her writhing body into her.

“Get off of me.”

She struggles against her, but Eve is calm. She knows that Villanelle could so easily overthrow her, pin her to the ground, and take every ounce of control, but she doesn’t. She grabs at Eve’s arms in a weak attempt to free herself, before finally going still. 

“I’m sorry,” Eve whispers into her hair.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Villanelle sinks to her knees, Eve still holding onto her from behind. She convulses with full body sobs that shatter Eve, and she tightens her grip around her waist as she gasps for air.

“I can’t breathe, Eve.”

“Yes you can. You can. Just breathe with me, okay?”

She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a labored, shaking breath.

“Good. Again.”

When her breathing finally restores itself, Eve relaxes her grip and feels Villanelle slump into her. She hesitates before whispering, “We have to go.”

Weakly, Villanelle nods. “Where are we going?”

“Wherever you want.”

Three hours later, they’re boarding a last minute flight to Paris with their carefully curated fake passports. The plane is unusually quiet, and Eve tries to squander her paranoia as she loads her carry-on into the compartment and takes the seat next to Villanelle, who leans her head against the window. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy. They haven’t spoken apart from travel logistics since they were on the floor of Eve’s apartment.

Villanelle sleeps for the entirety of the flight, and Eve watches her, aching, wishing she could listen to her rambling about something trivial, or that they could just talk mindlessly about the world, but not the one they’ve created.

“Sorry about what I said.” She whispers.

Villanelle doesn’t wake up.

When the plane finally touches down in Paris, Eve shakes her awake. “Hey. We’re here.”

Villanelle lifts her head disorientedly and rubs her eyes. Eve passes her her carry-on bag and she stands up, still in a haze of sleep. They silently and dazedly make their way off of the plane and to the luggage claim, where Villanelle pulls out her phone.

“I have to make a call.”

“To who?”

She’s already disappeared around the corner. 

“Villanelle-”

Eve doesn’t have the energy to go after her, but trusts her ability to get herself out of stupid and precarious situations. She finds their bags, and waits for a questionable period of time before Villanelle re-emerges, tucking her phone into her coat pocket.

“What was that about?”

“I have a place for us to go.”

Eve stares at her. “How?”

Villanelle shrugs, and grabs her suitcase. “Blackmailing Konstantin.”

“What?”

Villanelle smiles coyly. “I could tell them everything, and he knows that.” She starts walking towards the escalator to the exit, and Eve follows. “They’re already after me, so he doesn’t have anything on me anyway. It’s perfect.”

“You are unbelievable.” Under normal circumstances, Eve would grill her for every detail of her plan and execution, but her exhaustion lets Villanelle have her moment.

They leave the airport and take a cab to a nearby train station, where Villanelle buys tickets and leads Eve onto a quiet car near the back.

“So where are we going?”

“Annecy.” Villanelle answers, matter-of-factly, planting herself in the seat next to Eve. 

“What’s Annecy?”

“Little seaside town in the south. Konstantin has a holiday house there.” She smiles smugly. “But it’s ours now.”

“Of course he did.”

The train ride is longer than the flight, and Eve feels herself nodding off several times, but forces herself to stay alert despite the fact that she’s been awake for almost twenty four hours. 

It’s still dark when they step off the train, but Eve can discern the outlines of buildings and the faint reflection of the moon on the canal. They take another cab to what Eve assumes to be the outskirts of the city, and are dropped off at a pathway leading to a large, stone cottage. Villanelle leads the way to the front door while Eve lugs their suitcases behind her, and pulls a key out from under a leafy plant next to the entrance. 

The inside is stunning, but Eve is barely able to register anything as her vision caves in. She feels Villanelle leading her to the bedroom, strips off her coat, shoes, and socks, and collapses onto the four poster bed. Villanelle slowly lies next to her, and Eve faintly sees the wide outline of her eyes staring at her.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, as her eyes flutter shut.

Villanelle doesn't say anything.

“You know what?” Eve slurs, “Can we just forgive each other for right now and save it for the morning? I forgive you. Can you forgive me? Okay. Goodnight.”

She thinks she sees Villanelle give her a broken smile before dropping off into sleep.


	4. annecy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! i am so sorry this took so long to post. i've been crazy busy, but here's chapter four! hope you enjoy xx

In the week that follows, they’re sedentary. Eve leaves the house to buy groceries, and to get them new identification documents. Villanelle is lethargic, spending the days upside-down on the couch with her eyes glued catatonically to the TV. Eve makes several half-hearted attempts to rouse her, torn between impatience and concern.

“There’s a flea market downtown this morning. I think you would really like it.”

“Hm.”

“The rain stopped. We should go for a walk.”

“I’m too tired.”

Eve tries to reassure herself that Villanelle’s behavior isn’t anything out of the ordinary, that she’s still reeling from what happened in the office building back in London, and that this is her way of processing the trauma. But she sleeps on the couch, and Eve can’t remember the last time she saw her shower or change clothes.

The Monday after their arrival, Eve enters the living room to see Villanelle’s torso dangling off of the edge of the couch, with the rest of her body tangled in a blanket. The low buzz of static emits from the TV, which Eve presumes has been on all night. She rolls up her sleeves, snatches the remote, and shakes Villanelle awake.

“What are you doing?”

“Time to get up,” Eve answers, switching off the TV and swiftly pulling the blanket from Villanelle’s grip. She squints up at her, and whines.

“Eve, I was asleep.”

“It’s almost noon and you need to eat something.” Eve folds the blanket into a neat square and places it on the table next to the couch. “Come on.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t care.”

Forty minutes later, Villanelle sulks into a bowl of yogurt, wearing a clean bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her hair. Eve leans forward onto the table, eyebrows raised.

“You know, I never thought I’d see the day that you of all people started having personal hygiene problems.”

Villanelle glares at her. Bad timing on Eve’s part. She quickly grabs the untouched bowl of yogurt and places it in the sink. “So are we gonna talk?”

Villanelle frowns. “Talk about what?”

There’s a moment of silence before Eve sighs.

“Let’s go for a walk, then.”

The cool, rain spattered air of late March settles around the two women as they trudge down the driveway and turn into the street. Annecy is hardly a “little seaside town,” as Villanelle so quaintly described it, but rather a vibrant and compact city that has surprised Eve with its array of offerings. They walk arm-in-arm to the square, where Villanelle perks up at the sight of a farmer’s market along the canal, signaling to Eve that her distraction attempt has been successful. She follows her through the tents of jewel-colored fruits and vegetables, handspun yarn, fresh cheeses and bread, and homemade necklaces. A hint of rejuvenation appears in Villanelle’s face as she speaks rapid-fire french with the locals, forcing Eve to apply all of her concentration into picking out parts of the conversations:

“The design of this is stunning, but it’s a little expensive, no?”

“I used to come here for work every so often, and I would never want to leave.”

“My wife and I just moved here, so we’re getting a feel for the scene.”

She’s charming and animated, drawing people in to join her circle of chatter. It’s a noticeable change from the sluggish, silent Villanelle who lay on the couch an hour earlier. In the midst of her conversing, Eve catches a glimpse of the old Villanelle, who could mask and unmask herself in an instant. She’s a character again, but there’s a strange comfort in seeing her smile.

After an hour, Villanelle bids farewell to her new friends and catches up to Eve, who has started along the gravel road that leads back to Konstantin’s house. She wraps her arm around her waist and plants a light kiss on her cheek. Eve eyes her, suspiciously.

“Well that brought you back quickly.”

Villanelle shrugs, and walks ahead of her. “Meeting new people energizes me.”

“Since when?”

She turns around and gives her an incredulous look. “Since always.”

“And since when am I your wife?”

“What did you want me to say? That we were sisters?” She pinches Eve’s cheek, smiling, and Eve swats her hand away. “You should be flattered. I would be.”

Eve nudges her in the ribs, and she bounces ahead of her down the path. “You know, Eve, A lot of the time I think I was born in the wrong country.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I was meant to be French.”

Eve trails behind her, shaking her head and wondering if she’ll ever be able to make any sense of the world that the two of them share. “And why’s that?”

Villanelle looks forward, her gaze growing contemplative, and Eve suddenly wonders if she shouldn’t have said anything. When she speaks, her voice is earnest.

“People don’t care as much here.” She kicks a few pebbles along the path. “I feel real here. Everywhere else it feels like I don’t exist. You know?”

“Actually yeah,” Eve says, half smiling, “That’s kind of how I used to feel about home.”

“Home?”

“Back home. In London.”

Villanelle squints up at the sky. “I never liked London. Too rainy.”

“Really? But London’s where you met me for the first time.”

“That doesn’t make the weather any better, Eve.”

To Eve’s surprise, they spend the evening together, eating smoked cheese and bread and watching the old noir films they found in a cabinet next to the TV. Following their trip into town earlier in the day, Eve had been fully prepared for Villanelle to shrink back down to her catatonic state on the couch, but she’s talkative and alert, and everything feels utterly, almost concerningly normal.

They kiss in the kitchen after doing the dishes. Villanelle wraps her arms around Eve’s waist and lifts her onto the counter, tangling her hands in her hair and whispering into her ear over and over:

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Shh. You’re distracting me.”

“Do you think I’m pretty, Eve?”

“Yes. Can you-”

“Say it.”

“Villanelle-”

“Say you think I’m pretty.”

“You know you’re pretty.”

“Can you just shut up and say it?”

“Okay. Fine. You’re very pretty. You’re fucking beautiful, and it actually used to be really inconvenient for me-”

“Shh. Eve.” She smirks softly, and leans into her lips. “So much unnecessary talking.”

Eve has forgotten how small her bed feels when Villanelle is in it, but has missed the feeling of her narrow frame pressed against her in the dark. She lightly traces her arm with her fingertips, feeling herself sink into sleep.

It isn’t long before she’s startled awake by the unmistakable crying of Villanelle, who shakes and chokes out unintelligible sounds while Eve tries to bring her back to reality.

“Villanelle. Villanelle. Hey. I need you to look at me.”

Villanelle fights against her and shoves her back onto the mattress, scrambling out of the bed and frantically looking around the room. She shivers despite the soaking of sweat that envelops her, and her face is sickeningly pale. Eve motions to her slowly, as if approaching an untamed animal.

“Villanelle. Stop. You were dreaming.”

They’ve done this so many times that it’s become routine, even when Villanelle is at her lowest point. She steadies herself on Eve’s arm as she shakily sits on the edge of the bed and buries her face in her hands.

“Fuck.”

“It’s okay,” Eve murmurs, squeezing her shoulder. “You should drink some water.”

“I can get it.”

“It’s fine.”

When Eve returns to the bedroom with the glass of water, Villanelle is lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She places the glass on the nightstand, and wordlessly climbs in next to her.

“Eve?” Villanelle’s voice is soft and raspy. Eve passes her the water.

“Yeah?”

“I think I should go back to therapy.”

Eve snickers. “If only.”

“I’m being serious.”

Villanelle’s eyes are wide and earnest, and Eve laughs.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am,” Villanelle counters. Eve stares at her in disbelief.

“Are you kidding me? You were right about the whole therapy thing. Good luck getting me to trust some licensed stranger with all my personal information again.”

Villanelle raises her eyebrows. “Well that wasn’t an actual therapist.”

“I know.”

“So what’s your point?”

“I mean, how do we know that every therapist out there isn’t actually a part of the Twelve? We don’t. There’s no way to prove it. So what’s the point at all?”

“Eve.” Villanelle’s voice edges on laughter, and Eve feels a twinge of offense.

“Okay. You really think you can trust a therapist again? Because I can’t, and I‘m usually way more open-minded than you.”

“Well I’m keeping an open mind now. How’s that for you, Boss?

“Stop calling me Boss.”

“Why? I like it.”

“It’s really weird.”

“Okay, fine. I thought it was cute. But whatever.”

Eve raises her eyebrows at her, frowning. “I still can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

“One hundred percent.”

Eve turns onto her side. “Okay. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Villanelle’s new therapist is named Dominique. She lives in a secluded villa on the outskirts of the city, where Villanelle bikes twice a week for her appointments. Eve enlisted her former colleagues at BitterPill to perform an extensive and questionably legal background check before allowing Villanelle to make an appointment, and while there are seemingly no remote ties to the Twelve or any organized crime organizations in the slightest, she books an AirBnB in Italy just to be safe.

Villanelle finds that Eve was right about her newly developed trust issues with therapists. In her first appointment, she hardly speaks, making her answers to Dominique’s questions as vague as possible, and prepares to challenge her as she used to do so often with Wendy. But Dominique is calm and non-judgemental, and Villanelle slowly finds herself wanting to open up to the kind and patient woman she sits across from each week.

When they talk about her mother, she weeps, and she doesn’t know why. She’s not sad, or angry, or guilt-ridden, but it pours out of her uncontrollably when Dominique asks her what she imagines she could have become if someone had loved her when she was young. Eventually, she tells her everything; Anna’s husband, the prison, the nightmares, Eve, and those fateful few days in Russia when everything came spiraling back.

It takes time, but little by little she feels herself beginning to heal. People start to make more sense to her, and she finds that she’s able to listen, and process, and slowly release herself from the faux-narcissism and persistent craving for validation she’s experienced her whole life. Dominique breaks her down into hundreds of microscopic pieces that they’re able to sort through and contemplate together. With it comes a new and foreign sense of self-worth. And with that, Eve.

They spend their weekends at the farmer’s market, and in the downtown pubs, and by the lake, studying the people that pass them by, discussing art and cinema and political theory as if they’re two strangers on an alternate astral plane.

They hike in the alps. Villanelle scampers up the rock-laden path and laughs at Eve, who breathlessly struggles to keep her footing. When they reach an overhang that gazes onto some unnamed city, Villanelle wraps her arms around Eve’s waist, rests her chin on her shoulder, and exhales.

She takes up gardening, clearing out the mess of overgrown weeds that sits in the backyard of the holiday house. There’s an unsettling comfort in the knowledge that she’s nourishing a living being, helping it grow and stay alive. She figures it will take some getting used to.

The locals hire her for their own plots, and she soon transforms the neighborhoods into vibrant, botanical jungles. She starts her own stand at the farmer’s market, selling handcrafted, lavish bouquets of flowers and leafy centerpieces, and swiftly becomes one of the most beloved individuals in the city. She and Eve are invited to dinner at a different family’s house every night, and are showered with constant praise and decadent gifts. Villanelle always introduces her the same way: “This is Eve, my inspiration,” she gloats. “You could say she’s my gardening muse.”

Eve blushes, and tells her she sounds like a renaissance painter.

There’s comfort in the flaws. They still encounter meaningless arguments that leave them bitter and resentful, but usually forget them by the next day. Eve still holds Villanelle in the middle of the night, but her dreams are quieter and more detached. She finds peace in the knowledge that she’ll never understand her, but has her completely memorized.

As late spring progresses into summer, Villanelle throws herself into the back garden. Eve likes to watch her from the window, sometimes losing copious amounts of time studying her hands as she digs in the soil or cuts a web of tangled vines. On one late June afternoon, Villanelle notices her watching, and waves, calling for her to bring out the sunscreen.

Eve grabs the bottle of unnecessarily chic SPF that Villanelle insists on re-applying by the hour and unlatches the back door. She’s thrown by a sudden pummeling sound, followed by Villanelle’s voice.

“OW! What the-”

“Villanelle?” Eve speeds around the corner of the house to the yard, completely unprepared for the scene that lies in front of her. Villanelle leans one hand on her knee for support and holds the back of her head with the other, grimacing. Lying behind her is a cracked plastic shovel and the unconscious, unmistakable form of Irina Vasiliev.

“Oh my god, what just happened?”

Villanelle glares at Irina’s limp body. “Little bastard hit me over the head with a shovel.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Villanelle retorts, kicking what remains of the plastic shovel and scowling. “I have no idea where she came from.”

“Why isn’t she in Cuba?”

“I don’t know, Eve.” Villanelle snaps. “Why would I know that?”

“So you-what did you do to her?”

“I punched her in the face twice.”

“You punched her in the face? She’s unconscious.”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

“Jesus Christ.” Eve scrambles over to Irina and kneels down, attempting to lift the upper half of her body under her arms. “Oh god, now her nose is bleeding. How hard did you even hit her?”

“Wow, Eve. Yeah. I’m fine. Thank you for your concern,” Villanelle quips, “I get hit over the head with shovels all the time so it’s no big deal. Really.”

“Just shut up and help me get her legs.”

Clumsily, they stagger through the back door and heave Irina’s body onto the couch. Villanelle holds a bag of frozen peas to her head and sulks, while Eve paces.

“How did she even get here? Did Konstantin tip her off or something? And if she’s here then where is he?”

“If he was that mad about the blackmailing he should’ve just told me.”

Eve stops pacing and looks at her. “So you think he sent her because of the-the blackmailing thing?”

Villanelle snorts. “Yeah, Eve. Konstantin sent his hobbit daughter to hit me over the head with a shovel because he was mad about us blackmailing him. No.”

“So what are you saying, then?”

Villanelle narrows her eyes and leans her face close to Irina’s, her voice a low growl. “I don’t know but I just hope this punk is ready for round two when she wakes up.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s at least find out why she hit you with a shovel first.”

“Fine.”

Villanelle insists on binding Irina’s wrists and ankles with duct tape, and Eve is too tired to argue, so she lets her have her moment. It’s another half hour of uncomfortable silence and staring before Irina’s eyes flick open, and no sooner than when she surveys her surroundings, looks at her wrists, and frantically begins trying to free herself, Villanelle pins her to the couch and spits unintelligible Russian into her face. Eve shouts protests, grabbing Villanelle’s arms and struggling to pull her off of the screaming, writhing girl beneath her.

“Hey. HEY. Villanelle, get off of her. This isn’t-OW! Jesus Christ. STOP.”

Irina jerks forward and sinks her teeth into Villanelle’s ear. Villanelle springs backward off the couch and stumbles into Eve, panting and raging.

“You bit me? YOU BIT ME??”

Eve has to physically drag her from charging back to the couch, and tries to regain her composure. “Irina, we’re not mad, we-”

“Oh, we’re not mad?”

Ignoring her, Eve continues. “We just want to know who sent you here.”

Irina fumes at them, trying to use her teeth to free herself from the duct tape. “Why did you tie me up?”

“Why did you hit me with a shovel?”

“Villanelle, stop.”

“Why are you here?” Villanelle snarls, crossing her arms and taking a confrontational step towards her, “Where’s your dad?”

“I don’t know where my dad is,” Irina retorts, “Why do you even care?”

“Why aren’t you in Cuba with him?”

Irina suddenly laughs, a sinister undertone creeping into her voice. “He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell us what?” Eve feels her impatience stirring, but wills herself to stay calm.

“What a bastard,” Irina chortles, leaning back into the couch cushion.

“Tell us or I’ll-”

“Relax. Jesus Christ,” Irina smirks, and states matter-of-factly, “I ran over my mom’s boyfriend with his car.”

“You what?”

Eve is nauseated, while Villanelle laughs in disbelief. “No you didn’t.”

“Yes I did.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying!”

“You couldn’t even knock me out with that shovel.”

“They took me to juvie for it,” Irina boasts, trying and failing to stand up, “That’s why I didn’t go with my dad. He just went without me. Piece of shit.”

Eve’s head spins. “Okay. So you-you deliberately killed your mom’s boyfriend.”

“Yes.” Irina sounds bored.

“Oh my God.”

“Get over it, Eve. We still don’t know why she’s here.”

Irina crosses her arms over her chest and locks eyes with Villanelle as though challenging her. “The Twelve bailed me out.”

“What? Why? They hate your dad.”

“Villanelle…” Eve slowly puts the pieces together in her head, and realizes.

“You’re not working for them, are you?”

Irina leans back smugly, and raises her eyebrows.

“No way.” Villanelle’s voice edges on amusement. “They bailed you out so they could hire you? You?”

She shrugs. “They were impressed with my work and said I had potential.”

Villanelle doubles over with hysterical laughter. “So they hired you to do my job? Eve, I told you they were absolute shit without me. They’re even worse off now.”

“Stop laughing at me. I’ve already had two jobs.”

“Oh yeah, and I’m sure you pulled them off great.”

“Yeah. I did. So shut up.”

“It’s too funny.”

Eve isn’t laughing. “Hold on. So the Twelve hired you to kill us? Both of us?”

Irina frowns. “Technically I can’t tell you that.”

“So that’s a yes then,” Villanelle retorts.

“I’m not telling you anything until you untape me.”

Eve glances at Villanelle. “Look, I don’t trust her either but I really don’t think the tape is necessary at this point.”

Villanelle sighs reluctantly. “Fine. But don’t even think about trying anything or I’ll tape your whole body.”

After freeing Irina from her restraints, they sit across from her at the dining room table and begin their interrogation.

“So you were sent to kill us.”

“Fine. Okay. Yes.”

“Who sent you?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“It was Helene, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not gonna tell you anything.”

“Okay, so we’ll just assume it’s Helene, because she’s the only relevant one who would want to get rid of us both. Great. Thank you.”

Irina silently fumes, and Villanelle smiles with satisfaction.

“Why’d they send you? Did they really think they could put you against me? Because you’re probably the worst possible option out of literally anyone they could have chosen.”

“You killed everyone else in London,” Irina spits, and Villanelle shudders, trying to block out the memory of the office building, while maintaining her confident facade.

“Wow. So they’re really desperate then.”

Eve folds her hands together on the table. “How did you find us?”

“I asked my dad.” Irina smirks proudly. “He doesn’t know I’m with them. Thinks I ran away from juvie and came to stay here.”

Eve sighs and leans back. “Great.”

Villanelle impatiently stands up. “Okay. So obviously you’re not going to kill us, and obviously you can’t go back without us dead, so we have limited options.”

“Who says I’m not going to kill you?”

“Seriously?” Villanelle snorts, “If you try anything I’m going to take you down faster than you broke that shovel and ship your body to Cuba.”

Irina looks at her smugly, and sneers. “You won’t kill me. Everyone knows you can’t do that anymore.”

“Oh yeah? Want to test it out?”

Irina falls silent. There’s a brief moment of tension before Eve is randomly struck with an idea.

“What if we just fake our own deaths?”

“What?”

“What?”

Villanelle and Irina both stare at her with utter confusion. She begins pacing slowly, racking her brain.

“I mean, I doubt they’ll think you’re secretly on our side if you didn’t run away with your dad. We could just set up some kind of gruesome death scene with the two of us, and Irina can take pictures or a video or something to prove she did it, and she’s hailed a hero by the Twelve, and they leave us alone, and everyone walks away happy.”

There’s a moment of silence before Villanelle speaks.

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Well it’s better than anything you could come up with.”

Villanelle frowns. “What about the cleanup operation?”

“Irina can just tell them she did it herself.”

“Oh yeah,” Villanelle sneers, “Like this little child could heave two dead bodies around and know how to take care of the mess.”

“We’ll go somewhere else. Can you think of any other options? Seriously.”

Irina glances at both of them. Villanelle glowers before giving in.

“Fine. But if this goes wrong it’s your fault.”

“Hello?” Irina protests, “Do I get any input on this?”

“No.”

Half an hour later, they’re sprawled across the mattress in their bedroom covered in faux stab wounds crafted from dark red lipstick and ketchup. Irina stands over them taking pictures, kneeling to get different angles.

“You both look so stupid.”

“Look who’s talking.”

After another half hour, they rinse off the fake blood, ensure that the photos make a convincing murder documentation, and walk Irina to the train station.  
“Remember. You stabbed us with a kitchen knife in our sleep. The sleep part is important.”

“I know.”

Eve leans closer to her and mutters in a low voice, “We’re gonna get you out of this, okay? Everything will be fine.”

Irina looks back at her, and for a split second Eve catches a glimpse of the feisty, innocent twelve-year old that was kidnapped by Villanelle in Paris all those months ago. But she turns cold a moment later, gives a nod goodbye, and gets on the train.

They watch the train grow further into the distance. Eve turns around and starts briskly down the sidewalk. “Come on. We have to go.”

They’re going to Italy. In the back of her mind, Villanelle has always known this was how it would end up, but she aches at the thought of leaving this euphoric normalcy behind. Eve senses a shift in her, gently takes her hand, and says, “We’ll come back. We just can’t risk running into a cleanup operation.”

And so, as they hurriedly board the train, and Villanelle silently mourns as she watches her familiar city fade into the distance, she is brought comfort by Eve’s words. They’ll be back.

They will always come back.


End file.
